Violence obscures objective of protest

THE right to peaceful protest is a pillar of open democracy, an amalgam of different rights – freedom of association, of expression and of peaceful assembly.

A public protest is a means of drawing attention to an issue.

The most important part of a protest is the message conveyed to the public. An effective protest results in adequate responses to the concern being raised.

If destructive behaviour becomes prevalent, people are turned off the cause.

The protest loses legitimacy as does the message it is trying to send. The focus then becomes the violence and vandalism, as has happened since Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande’s announcement that 70% to 80% of undergraduate students across the country will either be covered by the National Student Financial Aid Scheme or will not face fee increases next year. Indeed, when destructive actions override the message, the educational value is lost, the protesters are seen as troublemakers and the protest is no longer effective.

The right to peaceful protest is under threat from those who want to use it as a launching pad for their own egotistical stunts.

To express anger by burning buildings and destroying property is idiotic. Such stunts are also entirely counterproductive.

They guarantee that any public sympathy will shift away from the concerns and intentions of the vast majority of those who initially took part.

The focus switches to the actions of firefighters trying to douse smouldering buildings and clean-up crews sweeping rubble.

It is a pity that in conflict, some people believe they must take an adversarial approach to optimise the outcome.

They believe their viewpoint is better than any other. They want to ensure they win at all costs and the opponent loses.

But threats tend to make others cautious. Destruction of property, looting and insults hurt people and strengthen their resolve to dig in. This establishes a pattern of strategic attacking where both sides may lose, or one or both sides choose to disengage from communicating, making resolution impossible.

Our country can count many achievements over the past 22 years in reversing the impact of a racist education system designed to subjugate the majority.

Systematically, government is addressing these shortcomings and progress is being made. Most importantly, we want to achieve the goal of universal access to education. A lot of progress is being made in improving tertiary education access and outcomes. Remember that the government has appointed a commission to look at broader issues affecting the funding of higher education.

Also, last year the African Union adopted Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want, which essentially endorses the objective “to build and expand an African knowledge society through transformation and investments in universities, science, technology, research and innovation; and through the harmonisation of education standards and mutual recognition of academic and professional qualifications (as well as) establish an African accreditation agency to develop and monitor educational quality standards across the continent.”

The current self-destructive protests are taking us backwards and will only delay what Agenda 2063 is trying to achieve.

For now the future of many universities rests on a knife edge. To survive and prosper, we need to harness the support of those outside higher education whose voices could be influential – in politics, business, the voluntary sector, and other sectors.

Let us all join hands to renew our calls for restraint and for an immediate end to the present atmosphere.

While the constitution correctly protects the rights of citizens to peacefully demonstrate and express their dissatisfaction with any aspect relating to their lives and surroundings, the same constitution grants authority to the government to protect state assets and property attained with taxpayers’ money.

In the same vein the government will not tolerate the destruction of state property in the name of public demonstration.

Any citizen found unlawfully destroying property will face the full extent of the law.

I appeal to everyone to exercise the right of protest responsibly, not use it as a pretext for incitement, looting or destroying property.

I urge everyone to resist provocation, overreaction, and violence and turn to dialogue to resolve the fees protests.

Without dialogue we cannot hope to appeal to reason, to heal resentment or overcome mistrust and educate future workers, business leaders and leaders.

Phumulo Masualle is premier of the Eastern Cape